Business inspections, fines to resume from August, MP says

Inspections and fines for businesses in Ukraine, which were suspended after Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, are to resume in August, chairman of the parliamentary tax committee Danylo Hetmantsev said.

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First deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s tax committee Yaroslav Zhelezniak earlier said that the law lifting tax reliefs would not be passed by 1 July as planned.

The delay is due solely to "technical reasons", Mr Hetmantsev told Forbes Ukraine.

He added there were many proposals to abolish fines for non-use of payment transaction registers, but Ukraine could not agree to that since this obligation is stipulated in the memorandum with the International Monetary Fund.

According to the memorandum, Ukraine expects to receive USD 115 billion in funding over 4 years.

Some amendments to the bill which provides for the suspension of business privileges and the return of inspections may still be introduced by MPs, Mr Hetmantsev said, in particular retaining the current taxation system for companies operating in the areas of active hostilities.

Another proposed change made by Mr Hetmantsev and his colleagues is to establish criteria for business inspections until 2024. In particular, inspections will be conducted only for businesses with a lower tax burden than the average for their industry, as well as for those that pay wages below the industry average.

The bill providing for the return of the pre-war tax regime passed the first reading on 29 May. While the parliament did convene over the weekend, it did not debate the draft law.

The return of pre-war taxes is one of Ukraine’s obligations under the memorandum with the IMF, or the so-called structural benchmark.